Wilde West Page 11
“He been with the trip since San Francisco?”
“Since the beginning. Since New York. We began the tour in New York, and that more or less establishes his innocence, doesn’t it? I mean, none of these dreadful murders were committed before San Francisco.”
Grigsby shook his head. “Don’t know that.”
Oscar frowned. “You mean there might be still more of them?”
“Maybe.”
Oscar winced again.
“You started the trip in New York?”
“That’s correct, yes. New York.”
“When was that?”
“January.”
“When you get to San Francisco?”
“Toward the end of the month. I don’t have the exact date. I’m afraid I’m not much good with dates. Vail would know.”
“You were in El Paso, Texas, on February twenty-fourth.”
Oscar nodded. “Very likely.”
“And Leavenworth, Kansas, on March the first.”
“If you say so.”
“If you went as far east as Leavenworth, how come you came back this way afterwards?”
“An excellent question, one that I’ve frequently asked Mr. Vail myself. It has to do, apparently, with the availability of the lecture halls.”
Grigsby nodded. “Okay. Vail. Where’s he stayin’?”
“Where’s Vail stayin’?”
“Here. In the hotel.”
“Which room?”
“203.”
Grigsby nodded. “Who else?”
“Colonel von Hesse. Wolfgang von Hesse. A retired Prussian military officer. It would be absolutely impossible for him to have done this.”
Grigsby nodded, his face empty. “How long’s he been with the trip?”
“Since San Francisco.”
“How come he’s travelin’ with you?”
“He’s acting as escort to Countess de la Môle.”
“Who?”
“Countess Mathilde de la Môle. From France.”
“She joined up with you in San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“She introduced herself. She knows some people I know in London. She was traveling across the country and asked if she might join the tour.”
“Where they stayin’?”
“Here in the hotel. We’re all staying here.”
“Room number?”
“She’s in room 211. He’s in room 210.”
Grigsby nodded. “Who else?”
“O’Conner. David O’Conner. A reporter for the New York Sun.”
“Joined up in New York?”
“San Francisco. He’s covering the tour for his newspaper.”
“Room number?”
“207, I believe.”
“Who else?”
“Wilbur Ruddick. A poet from San Francisco. But really, the idea of young Ruddick doing anything so dreadful is completely absurd.”
Grigsby nodded. “Room number.”
Oscar sighed, resigned. “Room 208.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
“You said a valet. A servant.”
“Henry? But Henry’s been with me since New York. Henry Villiers. He’s a dear, sweet man.”
Grigsby nodded. “Which room?”
“214. But really, Marshal—”
“That it? Nobody else?”
Oscar sat back. “No one else.”
Grigsby nodded. “You givin’ another talk tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we go to Manitou Springs. I give a lecture at some private mansion there.”
“The Bell mansion?”
“Yes. And from there, the next day, we go on to Leadville.”
“Train or stage?”
“Pardon?”
“To Manitou Springs. You takin’ the train or the stage coach?”
“The train.”
“Noon train?”
“Yes.”
Grigsby nodded. “You got a list of the places where you gave talks? Since you started?”
“Why? Oh. Of course.” He frowned. “To determine whether there were any more of these killings. No, I haven’t. Vail does. I can obtain it from him, if you like.”
Grigsby made a slight negative motion with his head. “Get it myself.”
“You’ll be talking to these people? All of them?”
Grigsby nodded.
“They’ll all be very disturbed by this,” Oscar said.
“Not as disturbed as Molly Woods.”
Oscar frowned. “Yes, of course. Of course. But at the risk of repeating myself, I’d like to say that not one of them could have been responsible for any of this. I should be happy to swear to that. I’ve been traveling with all of them for weeks now. I know them. I’ve eaten with them.”
Grigsby shrugged. “Even a crazy person’s gotta eat.”
“But it’s impossible.”
Grigsby said, “One of them didn’t do it, then you did.”
Oscar raised his eyebrows. “Marshal—”
“You listen to me,” Grigsby said. “Someone killed those hookers. Way I figure it, the bastard’s got to be one of you people. One of the seven. Now maybe it wasn’t you. And then again maybe it was. You know your presidents, maybe, but that story about the streets, Washington and Lincoln, that story is bullshit. So I want to tell you this. I’m gonna be all over you and your people like ugly on a hog. You take a drink, any one of you, and I’m gonna swallow. You fart, and I’m gonna smell it. If it was you who did it, I’m gonna find out. We clear on that?”
“Yes, certainly, but—”
“Good.” He stalked to the door, opened it, and strode out, pulling it shut behind him.
CRIGSBY STOOD FOR A MOMENT outside Wilde’s door. His hip was throbbing—all that standing—and he was still shaky from pulling the gun. He had moved reflexively, without thinking—the moment Wilde reached into his pocket, Grigsby’s hand had jumped to the Colt, surprising him as much as it had Wilde.
Jesus, he hadn’t drawn down on anyone for years. No call for it. Now, alone in the hotel corridor, he could feel the tension percolating from his body. He’d held it in, ignored it, while he talked to Wilde. But now it was trickling away like sap from a tree, leaving him limp and weak.
He took a breath, let it out.
He smiled. One thing, though—he was still pretty goddamn fast. Not as fast as he used to be, naturally. Not after all the years, all the wear and tear, all the booze. But still pretty goddamn fast.
He adjusted his gunbelt with a self-satisfied tug.
Not bad for an old man.
By god, that deserved a drink.
Sitting in the empty bar downstairs, staring at his glass of bourbon, Grigsby frowned.
Could Wilde have done it? Killed and cut up Molly Woods and the others?
He was a nance. Looked like one. Acted like one. All soft and fluttery, talking through his nose with that airy-fairy accent. Grigsby was convinced that Englishmen—he had met a few—only talked that way out of spite. If you woke them up in the middle of the night, caught them off guard, they’d talk like normal people.
Now nances, it was a well-known fact, didn’t like women. Hated them. Jealousy.
But you wouldn’t think that a nance would have the balls to cut a woman up like that.
But you wouldn’t think that a nance would have the balls to light up a cigarette, bold as brass, while someone was holding a loaded Colt to his forehead, either.
Grigsby had seen the faint shaking of Wilde’s hand as he held out the cigarette case. It hadn’t lessened his respect for the gesture. Anyone who didn’t get a bit edgy when someone pointed a gun at him wasn’t right in the head.
No, Wilde had some balls, all right. For a nance.
Well now. Be fair. Lot of normal men wouldn’t have the balls to light up a cigarette with the barrel of a .45 looking up their nose.
But di
d Wilde have balls enough to commit four cold-blooded murders?
That wasn’t balls. That was craziness, pure and simple.
Wilde had seemed surprised when he heard about Molly Woods. Surprised, hell, he nearly shit in his pants.
But that could’ve been playacting. Nances were good at playacting. Lot of stage actors were nances. Came from playing at being women, maybe. Or playing at being normal. And Wilde was smart enough to pull it off—look at the way he’d come up with that story about the streets. Smooth as a snake oil salesman.
But the corner of Lincoln and Washington was a good two miles from Molly Woods’s shack. So why the story?
A boyfriend? He met up, maybe, with another nance?
It was smart, too, for Wilde to ask about killings in places where he hadn’t given one of his talks. Got to check on that.
First, though, talk to the valet. The servant. When you want to know about the boss, you ask the hired hand.
“No suh,” said Henry Villiers. “I never heard no prostitutes got kilt in those cities.”
Grigsby sat in one of the two unsteady chairs in the valet’s tiny room. He was sitting down because his hip still ached, and because the ceiling was so low it bumped against his hat. The room had probably been a storage space, maybe even a broom closet, before the Laidlaw brothers, the owners of the hotel, got greedy and crammed the bed and the chairs in here. The only other furniture was a small pinewood dresser. There was no window. The wallpaper, muddy green, trembled in the pale yellow glow of a small oil lamp.
“Where were you at last night, Henry?” Grigsby asked.
“With Mr. Oscar. At the Opera House.”
“Until when?”
“Until after the lecture.”
“And when was that?”
“’Bout ten o’clock.”
“Where’d you go afterwards?”
“Went for a drink.”
“Where?”
“The Red Eagle Saloon.”
Grigsby nodded. The Red Eagle was one of the few downtown saloons that served coloreds. The Red Eagle served everyone. Except for the Chinese, naturally. No one served the Chinese.
“What time you get back to the hotel?”
“’Bout twelve.”
“Anyone see you? Clerk at the front desk?”
Henry shrugged. “Don’ know. Maybe.”
He was a small slender black man, fifty or so years old, with white hair and a long narrow face. He wore a neat black suit, a white shirt, a black bow tie. His features were even and regular, and so far they had been completely without expression, revealing nothing at all of what went on behind them.
“How you gettin’ along with Mr. Oscar, Henry?”
“Jus’ fine.”
“You figure he’s a little strange, maybe?”
“Strange how?” The features didn’t change.
Grigsby grinned, man to man. “C’mon now, Henry. You know what I mean.”
Henry shook his head. “No suh.”
Grigsby generally liked colored people—their good humor, their innocence, the easy unthinking rhythm of their simple lives—and although occasionally, like now, they were a little slow on the uptake, generally he got along just fine with them all. Some of them were shiftless, sure—but, hell, when you came right down to it, so were some of the whites. Most of them were hard workers, good providers, men who knew their place in the scheme of things, and stayed in it. There weren’t a whole lot of uppity coloreds here in Denver—one way or the other, uppity coloreds didn’t last long.
And all the coloreds in town knew that Grigsby might be hard, but he was straight. He gave a man a fair shake, black or white.
If only he could get Henry here to see all this.
Grigsby said, “You married, Henry?”
“No suh.”
Grigsby nodded. “So I guess maybe, being a normal kind of fella, every so often you get yourself a hankerin’ for a woman.” Grinning again, Grigsby winked. “Know what I mean?”
Henry shook his head. “No suh. Don’ really have no time for the women.”
“Well, sure, Henry. You got responsibilities. But I mean, if you had the time, you’d probably get yourself a woman every now and then, right?”
Henry shrugged. “Yes suh. Prob’ly.”
“Sure you would. And all I’m askin’ is, you figure that Mr. Oscar does that? Get himself a woman now and then?” Or a nancy boy, maybe?
Henry shook his head. “Wouldn’ know ’bout that.”
“Yeah, but Henry, you see him every day. You’d know if he was out tomcatting, am I right?”
Henry shrugged. “See him in the morning. See him at the lecture. Don’ see him at night, mostly.”
Try something else, Grigsby told himself.
“Who takes care of Mr. Oscar’s clothes, Henry? Gets ’em to the laundry and all?”
“I do.”
“You ever noticed anything strange about Mr. Oscar’s clothes?”
“He got a lot of them,” Henry said. “Lot of different colors.”
They were like children. You had to lead them along, step by step. “No, Henry,” Grigsby said patiently, “what I mean is, you ever noticed bloodstains or anything on Mr. Oscar’s clothes? Or maybe they were damp, like he’d tried to wash ’em off himself?”
Henry shook his head. “No suh.”
“You see what I’m getting at, Henry?”
“No suh.”
Grigsby sat back. He plucked the sack of tobacco from his vest pocket, opened it. You just had to be patient, was all. “You smoke, Henry?”
“No suh.”
Didn’t use tobacco. Didn’t use women. Maybe Henry was a nance himself. Nances were popping up all over the place.
Grigsby poured tobacco into the curled sheet of paper, rolled the paper, licked it, stuck the cigarette between his lips. He struck a match with his thumbnail, lit the cigarette. Exhaling, he said, “He hired you, Henry? Mr. Oscar?” He stuck the tobacco pouch back in his pocket.
“No suh,” Henry said. “Mistuh Vail.”
Grigsby nodded. “You get along okay with Mr. Vail?”
“Yes suh.”
“You ever notice anything strange about Mr. Vail?”
“No suh.”
“What about the others? The newspaper reporter. O’Conner. Anything strange?”
“No suh.”
“And the German? This colonel fella.”
“No suh.”
“And who’s the other one? The poet?”
“Mistuh Ruddick. No suh.”
“Everybody’s one hundred percent normal and okay.”
“Yes suh.”
Grigsby took another puff. “Well, Henry, I don’t think so. I think one of these fellas is crazy. Evil-crazy. I think he’s killin’ hookers. I know he is. So I want you to do me a favor. You don’t mind doing me a favor, do you?”
“No suh.”
Grigsby nodded. “You do me a favor, maybe I can do you a favor. You come through for me, maybe I can slip you a few dollars. How would that be?”
Henry nodded, still expressionless. “Be fine,” he said.
“We can all use a few extra dollars, right?”
“Yes suh.”
“Okay, so what I want you to do, I want you to keep your eyes open. You see anything strange, you let me know. Anything at all, okay?”
Henry nodded. “Yes suh.”
Grigsby stood. “Good. We got a deal then?”
“Yes suh.”
“Just between us, now. You and me. No point in lettin’ any body else know.”
“No suh.”
Glancing around the room, for the first time Grigsby noticed the book lying atop the pinewood dresser. “That yours, Henry? The book? You can read?”
“Yes suh.”
“Hey, that’s great. Here in Denver, not many of the coloreds can read. You ought to be proud.”
“Yes suh.”
“What’s the book?”
“The Red and the Black.”
“Yeah? Any good?”
“Yes suh.”
“Well, that’s great, Henry. Great. You keep it up.”
“Yes suh.”
“And you let me know, you see anything strange.”
“Yes suh.”
Back downstairs in the bar, Grigsby sipped at his bourbon. All in all, he thought he’d handled Henry pretty well. Patient and friendly, no strong-arm stuff, no threats. Straight from the shoulder, one regular fellow to another. Even complimented him on his reading. (The Red and the Black? What was that? Some kind of history about Indians and coloreds?) Anyway, he figured that he and Henry were real solid now. And maybe, to get the money Grigsby had offered, Henry would come through with something new.
Probably not, though. Henry wasn’t exactly the smartest colored that Grigsby had ever met.
He took another sip of bourbon. Who’s next?
“Wait a minute,” said Jack Vail, suddenly sitting back in his chair. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying someone’s been killing off hookers in the cities where Oscar’s been giving lectures?”
Grigsby, sitting opposite the business manager, said, “Yeah.”
Vail’s room was three times the size of Henry’s, and bigger even than Wilde’s. Being a business manager paid pretty well, it looked like.
“On the same days he was there?” Vail asked.
“You got it.”
“Jeez. Don’t tell O’Conner.”
“How come?”
Vail raised thick eyebrows almost to the rim of one of the worst wigs that Grigsby had ever seen. Gray and shiny, smoothed down flat at the top, it looked like some kind of dead fish curling up in the sun. “How come?” Vail said. “He’s a reporter, that’s how come. Soon as he knows, he’ll try to get it in every newspaper in the country. It’ll kill the tour.”
“Uh-huh. Tell you the truth, I got a bigger problem here with the hookers gettin’ killed.”
“Hey. Sure. Naturally. I can understand that. But you got to understand my position also, Marshal. I got to make sure everything goes smooth on the tour. This gets out, I’m gonna lose bookings like crazy, all over the place.”
He was a typical Easterner, talking mile-a-minute from the corner of his mouth. Maybe forty-five years old, he wore a suit of brown and mustard yellow plaid that reminded Grigsby of the tablecloths in cheap restaurants. He was round and tubby, with two or three shiny chins.